In
this paper we investigate happiness on the individual level. The prime
concern is therefore individual desires and not societal concerns.
Nevertheless individual happiness implies a solution for the conflict between
individual and societal interests. And sometimes the two interests overlap or
even coincide. Insofar the reflections about happiness cannot discard
reflections about society.

We
restrict the investigation to concepts which are guided by reason. Even
then the results are widely different, depending on the approach (empirical, philosophical,
literary) which is
chosen.

Methodological
pluralism is neither a reason for moral relativism, nor a reason against it.
The variety of methods simply enhances the capacity to check arguments on both
sides.

1.
The cultural diversity of moral rules is a fact.

2. There are
strong arguments for non-absolutism
and value pluralism.
The term reason can be associated with both life-friendly and
retreat-oriented ways of living.

None
of these arguments excludes moral universalism. The normative force of reason
restricts happiness at the cost of others and happiness at the cost of one’s
own future self.

1
Introduction

Starting point

1.In
this paper we investigate happiness on the individual level. The prime
concern is therefore individual states of mind and not societal
concerns. Nevertheless individual happiness implies a solution for the conflict
between individual and societal interests. And sometimes the two interests
overlap or even coincide. Insofar the reflections about happiness cannot
discard reflections about society.

2.We
restrict the investigation on concepts which are guided by reason. Even
then the results are widely different, depending on the approach (empirical, philosophical,
literary) which is
chosen.

But possibly philosophers – because they are more cautious and think
ahead – have an over-average chance to avoid suffering.

Philosophers have often defined happiness in terms of living a good life,
or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. In everyday speech today,
however, terms such as well-being or quality
of life are usually used to signify the classical meaning, and happiness
is reserved for the felt experience that philosophers historically called pleasure (Happiness, Wikipedia).

The pursuit of
happiness by means of reason is one of the oldest domains of philosophy:

Buddha’s vision of
happiness is in many aspects opposite to the one of Aristotle: selflessness
thru meditation instead of self-realization thru activity.

2.2
Philosophical Findings

Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer wrote one of the first self-help books. It gives the
reader advice on how to make life bearable. Some of his remarks are very apt.
For instance he advises the reader to restrain from striving for wealth; and
contemporary data shows that once a basic income is achieved, more money does
little to increase happiness. He also advises us to stay busy, which is a valid
suggestion. Schopenhauer rightly observed that a person’s character is a key
determinant of happiness [Schalkx, 393]

Epicurus

1.Reasonable happiness:

Epicurus showed a lot of confidence in his happiness advice. At the
end of his Letter to Menoeceus he wrote: ‘Practise these and the related
precepts day and night, by yourself and with a like-minded friend, and you will
never be disturbed either when awake or in sleep, and you will live as a god
among men.’ (…) It is positive that Epicurus mentions the importance of the
bio-psychological needs of people, and that fulfilling these needs will
contribute greatly to happiness. Also his observation that intimate
relationships, and especially friendships enhance happiness more than
materialism and status, stands the test of modern data. His advice to live a
life with moderate and varied pleasures turns out to be valid, although he
exaggerated the need for deferring gratification. His ideas about the
importance of a healthy lifestyle seem to be correct as well. In these respects
it won’t do us any harm to follow his advice today (…)

2.Unnecessary unhappiness:

The value of Epicurus’ advice, however, is not that he pointed to a
unique direction that would always make people happy. The central aim of his
philosophy is to find a cure for ‘unnecessary’ unhappiness that is the low
well-being of people that have their basic needs fulfilled, but who still feel
bad because they want things they cannot have. This advice shares many
characteristics with modern day cognitive behavioral therapy that aims to cure
counterproductive patterns of thinking and reacting and to replace them by more
realistic and helpful ones. In Epicurus’ happiness advice a lot of attention is
given to the unchangeable stressors of life, such as death, disease, terrible
pain and ill fate (the gods). He encourages his followers to confront these
facts of life, without losing emotional equilibrium. The core of the self does
not need to be touched by the hardships. We do not know how effective this
approach is for the readers of his texts, but research about acceptance
indicates that this may be a fruitful approach for dealing with difficult
emotions [Poot, 419-421]

Ancient Eastern philosophers

1.Classic Confucianist advice appears to be the
most apt for finding happiness in present day society, in particular because of
its recommendation that one become involved in real life.

2.Classic Taoist advice is second best; its strong
point is that it advises against too much social conformism and bookishness.

[Zhang,
442]

2.3
Empirical Criticism

Contradictions

Ancient
concepts of the good life are often contradictory. Example:

1.For Protagoras there is only a
subjective truth („Man is the measure of all things”) but Aristotle denies
subjectivism.

Ironically, Schopenhauer did not realize the strong interaction
between his own personality and his view on happiness. His gloomy view on human
interaction dominates his advice about happiness. Contemporary data prove
Schopenhauer wrong in these remarks on social interaction. Social interaction
is a key determinant for happiness. His advice to shy away from people and to
distrust others is probably the worst advice for anyone to follow. The book is
amusing and well written, but it would be a mistake to follow all of its
recommendations. Schopenhauer did not succeed in using his pessimistic world-view
constructively for creating happiness enhancing advice. Misanthropy and social
isolation will make you unhappy, even when you are someone with a neurotic personality
like Schopenhauer [Schalkx, 393]

Epicurus

Recommendations that don’t apply today:

1)Research findings do not support Epicurus’
advice to prefer friendship to marriage and to avoid public life. For this he
offered the alternative of living in a commune of like-minded people. For his
contemporaries this may have been enough compensation, given the societal
turmoil of his time, but this way of life is not appropriate for present-day
readers.

2)Epicurus’ focus on avoiding negative affect has
two serious side effects if it is used as inspiration for dealing with life:

a)The first is that Epicurus––for a hedonist––had
a surprisingly negative view of positive affect. He conceived happiness as the
absence of pain and this implied that there was little need to pursue positive
experiences. Escaping pain was enough. This runs counter to what is known today
about the active lifestyle of happy persons and about the independence of positive
and negative affect. For the art of life, you need positive goals as well. Epicurus’
ideas about friendship and marriage can serve as an example in this respect.
Epicurus advised people to focus on a wide circle of friends and not on a specific
bond with one spouse. The idea was that it is too dangerous to become dependent
on one person, because of the pains of bad marriage, divorce or widowhood. With
the help of a large Dutch survey study we were able to show that this risk
avoidance is unwarranted. On average the number of happy life years is greater
for those that take the risk and became involved in family life. The same can
be argued for involvement in public life. On average the yields of involvements
more than compensate for the frustrations.

b)One additional omission that has to be noted is
that Epicurus neglected personality differences. Personality is one of the
strongest and most consistent predictors of subjective well-being. The happy
individual is extravert, optimistic, and worry-free, has internal control,
self-esteem and feels in control of his environment. Epicurus’ happiness advice
does not take personality into account. This might have been because he
underestimated the importance of personality traits. Another reason may be that
he focused on aspects his followers were able to change. His advice was aimed
at overcoming one’s fears and being in control of one’s own life. A last
possible reason may be that personality differences would have had
repercussions for his commune in the Garden. It is easier to be an enlightened
leader, if you do not have to fuss about personal preferences in life-style [Poot,
419-421]

Ancient Eastern philosophers

Classic Buddhist advice is better avoided in modern society.
Although it may provide some consolation for the chronically unhappy, the
medicine seems to be worse than the disease. Alongside this advice for
individuals, Confucianist philosophy also gives sound advice with respect to
societal conditions for happiness. Taoism and Buddhism add little to the idea
of a good society, since they reject society altogether [Zhang, 442]

2.4
Philosophical Reply

Contradictions

Contradictory
recommendations in Ancient ethics suggest that there are many reasonable
concepts of a good life (and not only one).

Notion of
happiness

The evidence check is based on what we know about happiness in the
sense of life-satisfaction. However, the advice considered is sometimes based
on another concept of happiness or even multiple and ill-defined views on the
good life. Philosophers typically equate the good life with a life that meets
moral tenets. One could argue that it would be better to judge whether the
advice would inspire people to behave more kindly towards their fellow human
beings, since this may have been what the advisor wanted to accomplish. Yet,
the moral view on happiness is usually accompanied by the implicit promise that
living up to moral standards will make life more enjoyable and a lot of readers
seem to pick up this suggestion. Hence it still makes sense to investigate
whether this advice is likely to produce this result [Bergsma, 445-448].

Example: The Buddhist advice is based on a different (more spiritual)
concept of happiness. The enhanced perception of the self brings about that
people behave more kindly towards their fellow human beings. There is an
implicit promise that the decrease of aggression makes life more enjoyable. Unfortunately
there are no empirical investigations which compare monastic Buddhist
communities with Western competitive communities. Such an investigation would
also have to look at the distribution of happiness within the community
and not only at the average happiness. If we take criminality and (economic)
wars into account, then the result may turn in favor of the Buddhist community.

Comparability
of conditions

A second reason to question the fairness of our procedure is that
some papers have judged old advice applied to modern circumstances. We use data
from modern happiness research as a standard for Epicurus, Schopenhauer and the
classic Chinese philosophers, but they gave their advice in social
circumstances that were quite, or very, different from those of modern day
industrialized nations. We investigated the utility of the advice for modern
readers. We cannot do the same for contemporaries of these philosophers,
because data is lacking for people from those times. Despite this, a lot of
readers see eternal wisdom in these advisory texts and in this context it is
not wrong to test their applicability to modern conditions [Bergsma, 445-448].

It is
misleading to test the applicability of the Buddhist advice to modern
conditions. According to the Buddhist advice we would have to deny modern
conditions.

Data
limitations

A third reason to question our results has to do with the
limitations of the data. There is a large body of correlation data about
happiness, but still our understanding of the individual dynamics of happiness
and human thriving is limited and hence we cannot check the appropriateness of
all the advice [Bergsma, 445-448].

Use of the
advice

Another limitation is that we discuss the effects for average people
who would take the advice to heart. In real life the interaction between the
wise and their followers is more dynamic. Consider the following thought
experiments. In his book “There is a spiritual solution to every problem”
self-help guru Wayne [Dyer] tells his readers how he had to endure a heart
attack. For 24 h he was anxious and tense, but then he decided to become happy
again. He joked with his nurses and cardiologist and told his wife he loved her
during treatment. The great pessimist Arthur [Schopenhauer] defended a
radically different view on life. According to him happiness is not possible
and the highest aim is to free yourself from pain and to make life bearable. [Schalkx]
and Bergsma show that it is likely that a reader who follows Schopenhauer’s
advice will lose happiness. Now for argument’s sake, let us assume that Dyer is
an enlightened adviser and offers a key to remaining happy in all bad
circumstances. If so, we are still unable to conclude that everybody would
profit by reading Dyers book and would be harmed by Schopenhauer’s book.
Readers will not always take the advice literally, but will also compare
themselves socially with the authors. Just as a comparison with Einstein might
make you feel humble and might make you perform less well intellectually, a
comparison with Dyer might make you feel inadequate by contrast [Stapel]. The
chances are that a minor row with your partner will upset you more than the
heart attack upset Dyer; and you may decide that the marvelous spiritual
solutions are not available for you because you lack character. Schopenhauer’s
neurotic advice may give you the impression that you are better off than you
thought you were and that you have reason to be satisfied with yourself.

(…) Schopenhauer’s bad advice may well be more happiness enhancing
for some readers than good advice from Dyer [Bergsma, 445-448].

Diverse
readership

Another limitation of the evidence tests is that they ignore personality
differences. Effects of advice will in part depend on the personality of the
people who want to follow it. There are many different ways, in which to become
happy; and some personality traits will influence, which options are best for a
given individual. A one-size-fits-all approach is implicated in any general
review of happiness advice for average citizens (…). Yet, the happiness advice
is typically presented as applicable to everybody and this claim does justify
performing a test of general applicability [Bergsma, 445-448].

1.A
test of general applicability is desirable in order to refute the
one-size-fits-all approach. But the general non-applicability claim of
[Schalkx] with regard to Schopenhauer’s advice is an inappropriate
generalization as well.

2.Similarly
the empirical finding that on average the number of happy life years is
greater for those that take the risk and become involved in family life may not
be relevant for a specific risk-averse individual. The use of statistical
averages neglects personality differences as well as the generalization of
Epicurean ethics.

Conclusion

The advice
of the wise may not be applicable to the majority in the presently
dominating culture. But it may be helpful to the minority who questions this
culture.

3
Positive Psychology

Neuroscience as a tool in
the search for happiness is neglected in this paper. The knowledge about the
neuronal and neuro-chemical substrates which are involved in the emergence of
emotions and the scientifically exact description of those processes, have no
impact on our way of living [Koch, 91]. Neuroscience, however, has an indirect
impact by its effect on psychology and medicine.

1.Research
on the brain using EEGs
has supported the idea that different parts of the brain are activated when
humans are approaching rewarding stimuli versus punishing stimuli (see Unglück). This
discovery led (amongst others) to the development of Positive Psychology.

2.The
impact of health care on happiness is addressed in the context of happiness
economics (chapter 6).

3.1
Basics

Definition

Positive psychology is a recent branch of psychology
that "studies the strengths and virtues that
enable individuals and communities to thrive". Positive psychologists seek
"to find and nurture genius and talent", and "to make normal
life more fulfilling", not to cure mental
illness

In this
definition the term happiness is used in the classical sense of the good
life.

Background

1.The term positive psychology originates
with Maslow, in his 1954 book Motivation and
Personality.

2.Positive psychology began as a new area of
psychology in 1998 when Martin Seligman, pointed out that for the half
century clinical psychology "has been consumed by a single topic only -
mental illness", echoing Maslow’s comments. He urged psychologists to
continue the earlier missions of psychology of nurturing talent and improving
normal life.

Some researchers posit that positive psychology can be delineated
into three overlapping areas of research:

1.Research into the Pleasant Life, or the
"life of enjoyment", examines how people optimally experience, forecast, and savor the positive feelings and
emotions that are part of normal and healthy living (e.g. relationships,
hobbies, interests, entertainment, etc.).

2.The study of the Good Life, or the
"life of engagement", investigates the beneficial affects of
immersion, absorption, and flow
that individuals feel when optimally engaged with their primary activities.
These states are experienced when there is a positive match between a person's
strength and the task they are doing, i.e. when they feel confident that they
can accomplish the tasks they face.

3.Inquiry into the Meaningful Life, or
"life of affiliation", questions how individuals derive a positive
sense of well-being, belonging, meaning, and purpose from being part of and
contributing back to something larger and more permanent than themselves (e.g. nature,
social groups, organizations, movements, traditions, belief systems).

This is in
contrast to negative emotions, which prompt narrow survival-oriented behaviors.
For example, the negative emotion of anxiety leads to
the specific fight-or-flight response for immediate
survival.

3.2
Empirical Findings

Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs

Happiness is a chameleon which changes its color depending on the
situation [Fisch, 213]. This phenomenon was investigated (amongst others) by Abraham Maslow.

Maslow's
hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid, with the
largest and lowest levels of needs at the bottom, and the need for
self-actualization at the top (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Wikipedia):

Strengths and
Virtues

The development of the Character Strengths and Virtues
(CSV) handbook represents the first attempt on the part of the research
community to identify and classify the positive psychological traits of human
beings. Much like the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of general psychology, the CSV
provides a theoretical framework to assist in developing practical applications
for positive psychology. This manual identifies six classes of virtue (i.e.,
"core virtues"), made up of twenty-four measurable character
strengths.

The introduction of CSV suggests that these six
virtues are considered good by the vast majority of cultures and throughout
history and that these traits lead to increased happiness when practiced.
Notwithstanding numerous cautions and caveats, this suggestion of
universality hints that in addition to trying to broaden the scope of
psychological research to include mental wellness, the leaders of the positive
psychology movement are challenging moral
relativism and suggesting that we are "evolutionarily
predisposed" toward certain virtues, that virtue has a biological
basis.

Transcendence is
the Christian (life-friendly) version of the Hindu Moksha.

Humanity is
the Christian (tempered) version of the Hindu Kama.

Wisdom and knowledge

Transcendence

(Moksha)

Courage

(Artha)

Justice

(Dharma)

Humanity

Temperance

(Kama)

Comparison with Ancient ethics

In order to
compare positive psychology with Ancient ethics we associate it with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. For
the purpose of this paper such an assignment doesn’t have to be precise. It
will nevertheless clarify the difference to other concepts.

Positive
psychology claims that its concept of happiness delivers arguments
against moral relativism because we are
"evolutionarily predisposed" toward certain virtues. Moral relativism
may be undesirable but the attempt to construct ethics on a biological basis is
more than questionable. The Cardinal Virtues and the Purusharthas are important
anthropological findings and may represent a valuable basis for modeling human
behavior. But why should we have an evolutionary predisposition for wisdom; spiritual
transcendence and justice? It makes sense to account for the biological nature
of humans, but there are also good reasons to deny the world “as it is” and
lead a retreat-oriented life. Buddha’s and Epicurus’ paths to happiness
are remarkably different from Aristotle’s and represent valuable alternatives,
even if they are not acceptable to the majority. Positive
psychology represents a limited range of concepts whereas Ancient ethics discloses
alternatives for minorities.

4
Philosophical Novels

4.1
Basics

Philosophical novels are works of fiction in which
a significant proportion of the novel is devoted to a discussion of the sort of
questions normally addressed in discursive philosophy.
These might include the function and role of society,the purpose of
life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of
experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical novels
would include the so-called novel of ideas, including a significant proportion
of science fiction, utopian/dystopian novels,
and Bildungsroman.

There is no universally acceptable definition of the philosophical
novel, but certain novels would be of key importance in its history.

Novels that might qualify as philosophical novels in terms of
subject matter but which proceed by non-discursive means (such as allegory)
would be excluded. Richard Adams's Watership
Down, for example, would qualify as having social structures as its subject
matter but would be excluded on the grounds that the exploration of these
subjects is entirely inferred rather than being the subject of overt discussion
or debate.

1.Writing style is not neutral; the form of writing
influences the content conveyed; certain aspects of life cannot be conveyed
adequately in argumentative writing; and literary artists can
"state...truths" about human life which escape philosophical prose.

2.Philosophy's concentration on rules has obscured the need
for perception of particular (possibly unique) features of concrete situations.

3.Literature
has the potential to engage the reader in a form of moral work which is not
summoned by philosophical texts. Certain novels engage the reader in the work
of thinking through the moral possibilities of the portrayed lives. The attentive
reader construes the moral significance of the circumstances described, and
develops a view of how the characters ought to conduct themselves.

[Holland]

Agreement
with Murdoch

1.Art is far and away the most educational thing we have
[Murdoch, 230]. There can be no doubt, then, that there is substantial
agreement between Murdoch and Nussbaum on the question of literature's ability
to enhance moral understanding.

2.Murdoch's focus on moral attention shows the
importance she places on accurate perception of concrete features of persons
and circumstances, features which cannot be captured in rules or theories.

3.Murdoch and Nussbaum are both critical of
philosophical theories which have, in Murdoch's words, "...sought for a
single principle upon which morality may be seen to depend". They are
critical of philosophers who view moral life as being entirely a matter of
choice and public conduct. Murdoch and Nussbaum have responded to such
philosophical positions by drawing attention to the role of contingency and
particulars in moral life. Perhaps more significantly, they both discuss the
mental activity that precedes conduct, pointing out that prior to public action
one construes a situation as having a certain moral nature.

[Holland]

Disagreement with Murdoch

Murdoch agrees with the assertion that philosophy and literature are
"two radically different kinds of writing". On the subject of
philosophical style Murdoch writes: ...I am tempted to say that there is an
ideal philosophical style which has a special unambiguous plainness and
hardness (…) the philosopher (…) speaks with a certain cold clear recognizable
voice. Murdoch defines the task of philosophy as both "an attempt to
perceive and to tease out of thought our deepest and most general concepts,
„and "the critical analysis of beliefs". As she understands it, philosophy
is abstract, discursive, and direct.

[Holland]

It is, then, on the task of philosophy that Murdoch and
Nussbaum disagree. Murdoch views philosophy as the critical examination of
concepts and systematic reflection on presuppositions, whereas Nussbaum sees it
as the search for understanding. Murdoch's description of philosophy's
ideal style and aim implies that works of literature, however well they portray
moral life and also enhance the reader's understanding, are not works of
philosophy. Nussbaum's view of philosophy is broad enough, I believe, to admit
not only certain novels but also other written works (e. g. histories,
biographies, religious texts) which portray moral life and have the capacity to
provoke reflection in the thoughtful reader [Holland].

Holland recommends comparing the relation between novels and ethics,
to the relation between

1.science and philosophy of science

2.art and aesthetics:

1)Despite the role science plays in providing
material for philosophical reflection, one does not hear that certain
scientific experiments or methods are themselves examples of philosophy of
science

2)Likewise, the works of art discussed in
aesthetics are not themselves taken to be works of philosophy (…)

There are at least two different advantages to the approach I have
outlined.

1)One advantage is that it safeguards an
appreciation for the aesthetic value of literature. "Ethical readings of
works of literature tend to be reductive — and digressive" (…)

2)Much writing which has actually had moral
influence lies outside both philosophy and literature. I refer to the Talmud,
New Testament, and Koran. (…)

The unique contribution philosophy makes to moral thinking is that
it demands that one reflect upon what one finds morally compelling, and not
accept it simply because of its artistic presentation or religious authority. I
argue that the task Nussbaum assigns philosophy is too broad. Through the
use of critical and reflective methods, philosophy should examine and sort
moral claims. Literary, religious, and philosophical texts contribute to moral
education, and keeping them separate helps appreciate their distinct
contributions, as well as respect their distinct aims and methods [Holland].

Holland’s
analogy to science and the philosophy of science is not
persuading. A peculiarity of novels (in contrast to science) is that

1.they
often allow more than one interpretation so that the result depends on the
observer

2.the
insight may concerns the inner perspective of an individual (e.g. an
insight about the inadequacy of certain emotions)

The latter argument
also suggests that the analogy with art and aesthetics doesn’t
apply. The inner perspective of an artist is certainly present in a painting or
in a sculpture, but only as an end result.In a novel we can follow
the stream of consciousness of the actors.

Distortions

The weakness
of literature (as far as it attempts to transport ethical insight) is a biased
description of reality coupled with emotion. Many authors promote an individual
perception of reality as if it were a general truth. Philosophical
novels attempt to avoid this trap:

1.Platon’s Socrates used to
switch perspectives in order to correct distorted perceptions. His style is
characterized by analytical thinking combined with empathy.

2.A
different approach consists in introducing a “neutral” narrator (observer) or
in switching to a background story, which reflects the bias.

Ethnology contrasts different cultures on the basis of ethnographical
research. Ethnography
studies single groups through direct contact with the culture and tends to use
qualitative techniques (e.g. focus groups, interviews with open end questions)
(Ethnology, Wikipedia).

5.2
Empirical Findings

Following some
determinants of happiness, which have been discovered by sociological
researchers:

Mythical
world view

The different
concepts of happiness are always related to culture-specific opinions about a
good life. But some topics tend to recur: good health, many children, and a
harmonious marriage. In all societies where the community is more important
than the individual, happiness is experienced within collective celebrations
and festivities [Bargatzky, 97].

Good health, harmony and growth – these words describe happiness as
a kind of state, which is more than the momentary ravishment, the simple,
ephemeral, pleasant feeling expressed by the Sanskrit term sukha. The search for happiness
is directed towards something more important, more durable, deeper and – in a
sense – more real, a state which is expressed by the Sanskrit term ananda [Bargatzky, 99]. Happiness
is, in a fundamental sense, tied to culture and culture is always a long-term
project. The Latin word cultura points to the English term cultivate,
i.e. a preservative activity. It also relates to the term cult, i.e. the activity which
guarantees the continuance of theworld order. Happiness is a
prevailing mood which carries us thru the adversities of daily life. To
participate in the construction of the “world home” and thereby feel ones
destination, is an experience which is common to the Hopi, as well as the Hindu or the
Christians. Happiness in this sense is another word for being inter-ested,
being engaged. There is no happiness in solitude. Happiness emerges out of
responsibility for the whole. [Bargatzky, 104]. Such happiness can only be
experienced on the basis of a mythical world view.

With the destruction of myths, paradises and utopias [Hahn, 109-124]
the conditions for a happy life are destroyed as well.

But aren’t there cultures where myths were not destroyed, because
they didn’t exist in the first place? There are indeedhunter-gatherer cultures with no history beyond
living memory [Everett]. They are reported to be among the happiest of the
world, a fact which supports the thesis, that the Expulsion
from the Garden of Eden symbolically describes the transformation from the
hunter-gatherer lifestyle into an agricultural lifestyle.

Historical situation

Happiness depends on the historical situation. The meaning of the
term changes with each generation:

1.It was e.g. completely different for
participants of World War
II and the post war generation.

2.For the post war generation the meaning depended
on whether a person lived in front of or behind the Iron Curtain.

[Hettlage, 132-133].

Currently the following trends can be observed:

1.Happiness becomes a subjective and individual matter.

2.Happiness is associated with being young and
dynamic. As a consequence Anti-Aging
and For Ever Young movements emerge and spread out.

2.Advanced and leading civilizations don’t
necessarily make people happier. The Piraha, e.g., who
were able to maintain a hunter-gatherer
lifestyle, are reported to be among the happiest of the world [Everett]. They are solely concerned with matters that fall within direct personal
experience and completely concentrate on the present. They practice a kind of primitive communism and seem to have no social
hierarchy.

3.Not only emotions, but also the valuation
of emotions depends on the culture. The valuation of happiness within the Hindu
Ashrama is not the same as
within the Western world.
In Western societies happiness has become a right to happiness and a kind
of coercion [Hettlage, 154]. People are unhappy for not being
(perfectly) happy.

Liberation from rationality

1.Rationality is the guiding principle of modern
societies [Schimank, 160]. Consequently it always has an aspect of the morally
right. Hazardous decisions (particularly in important matters) are considered
to be immoral.

2.At the same time, the number and importance of choices
have increased dramatically, and with each additional option the responsibility
increases as well.

This situation creates a desire to liberate oneself from the
pressure of rationality. It might explain the increasing popularity of gambling
[Schimank, 164].

Love

Following some different meanings of the term love and
associated kinds of happiness:

1.In traditional families the prime concern was
the material and social well-being of the group.

2.In the last third of the 18th century
happiness was increasingly tied to the idea of romantic love [Burkhart,
179].

3.Romantic love is unstable and cannot guarantee
the symmetry of the genders. For that reason the concept of partnership
is currently favored. Partnership is better suited to control and solve the
problems of daily life, except for the problem of passion. Emotions have their
own logic and are not easily sacrificed to the ideal of equality and justice
[Burkhart, 184].

4.In the 1960ies the idea came up to search
happiness outside of stable relationships. Divorce was institutionalized
and consecutive marriages gained acceptance. Self-realization finally culminated
in the life style of a single
or in free relationships without obligations [Burkhart, 184].

Concepts of happiness depend on the social environment [Burkhart,
186].

1.The wish to lead a happy family life is typical for
the working class and the petite bourgeoisie.

2.People without heritage tend to favor romantic
love.

3.Academics prefer partnership because it allows
both partners to pursue their own career. Workpeople and countrymen tend to
adopt traditional life styles.

4.Women who are non-collegiate wage earners tend
to look for material security and are ready to sacrifice the ideal of equal
rights.

5.The life style of a single has a high
happiness-potential for attractive people. Attractive people possess a kind of
“capital” which they can invest in the “markets of happiness”. The unattractive
are in the same position as the poor in former times.

Political and economic determinants

1.Economic efficiency is in conflict with compassion;
charity is inefficient [Fisch, 224].

2.The individualization of happiness is a
consequence of the economic theory after Adam Smith.
Individualization is tied to a decline in the engagement for the community [Burkhart,185].

Obviously liberalism and free markets induce opposing trends:

1.A gain in happiness due to the satisfaction of
individual desires.

2.A loss in happiness due to the decline of
compassion.

Group dynamics

Concepts of happiness systematically overrule the perspectives and
desires of the individual [Reichertz, 231]. The individual gets in line with
the goals of the group by means of prescribed forms of happiness. The
biologically founded, talismanic release of hormones in the brain reacts to the
social demands of the group. Example: The so-called Flow experience
(which is promoted in seminars about motivation) seems to be a neurobiological
amendment of the Protestant
work ethic [Reichertz, 232].

5.3
Philosophical Criticism

In sociological
publications it is often difficult to find out, if the author refers to quantitative
or qualitative methods, or if he/she just expresses a personal opinion. Example:
It is unclear if the statement “Most people don’t know what to do with a
secured life” [Hahn, 121] represents the result of a survey (and if yes, in
which countries) or if it concerns the personal opinion of the author.

The quality of most surveys is dubious. Recommendations:

1.The results have to be presented in the form “X%
of the respondents classify themselves as being happy” and not “X% are
happy”.

2.It has to be investigated, if the results of
different surveys converge.

3.Longitudinal studies
have to be related to changes in the environment.

[Braun, 52-53].

6
Happiness Economics

6.1
Basics

Definition

Happiness economics is the study of a country's
well-being by combining economists' and psychologists' techniques. The goal is
to determine from what source people derive their well-being (Happiness Economics,
Wikipedia)

In this
context the term happiness doesn’t correspond to the Ancient meaning and
cannot be associated with the term good life(because the standard for the measurement
of well-being is subjective).

Goals

The happiness economist, with the assistance of collaborators in
psychology and sociology, attempts to quantitatively determine how happy we
are, and how much our degree of happiness may be raised or lowered through the
manipulation of various policy tools at the disposal of the political authority
[Ebeling, 3].

Happiness
economics aims at social
engineering and political
engineering. It differs from welfare economics with
regard to the database, but the goal to maximize happiness is (originally) the
same as in classical utilitarianism. The more happiness economics
abandons the goal of welfare maximization [Frey, 13], the more it overlaps with
sociology.

Methods

Happiness
economics favors quantitative (statistical) methods.

Besides own
surveys, it uses research data from sociology and psychology.

Quality of
life is the valuation of objective living
conditions. At the beginning the sociological research concentrated on social
and economic indicators like the following

1)income

2)material
security

3)political
liberty

4)social
justice

5)legal
security

6)health
care

Later research
concentrated on the subjective (psychological) valuation of living
conditions. Changes in the subjective valuation don’t necessarily
reflect changes of the objective living conditions. Examples:

A response
shift is a psychological change in one's perceptionof the
quality of life following a change in health status.This phenomenon
initially was recognized in patients with terminaldiseases who,
despite a worsening of the physical condition,did not necessarily
report deterioration in quality of life (Response Shift in
Patients Undergoing Knee Arthroplasty)

Finally the
subjective and objective assessments were combined in a single index:

Two widely known measures of a country's quality of life are the Economist Intelligence Unit'squality of life index and the Mercer Quality of Living Survey. Both
measures calculate the quality of life through a combination of subjective
life-satisfaction surveys and objective determinants of such as divorce
rates, safety, and infrastructure. Such measures relate more broadly to the
population of a city, state, or country, not to the individual level (Quality of life,
Wikipedia)

Life satisfaction

Life satisfaction measures assessed cognitive appraisals of the quality of life
experiences [Kashdan, 1229].It is the valuation of life as a whole,
rather than particular aspects of it.

1.The Eurobaromenter survey
e.g. asks “On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very
satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the life you lead?”

2.The World Values Survey
asks “Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, quite
happy, not very happy, not at all happy?”

3.Still another survey asked: “How satisfied are
you with your life as a whole these days?” where answers are indicated on a
7-point scale ranging from “completely satisfied” to “completely dissatisfied”.

[Hirata, 3]

Well-being

Subjective
well-being is comprised of the combination of three factors

1.Frequent
and intense positive affective states

2.The
relative absence of anxiety and depression

3.Life
satisfaction, self-contentment

Most studies
of subjective well-being measure either the affective or cognitive component,
but not both [Kashdan, 1226]

Happiness

The
psychological tradition uses the term happiness as follows:

1.Wide
definition: positive reinforcement or reward, an emotion which tends
to confirm a certain behavior

Historically,
economists have said that well-being is a simple function of income. It has
been found that once wealth reaches a subsistence level, its effectiveness as a
generator of well-being is greatly diminished. This paradox has been referred
to as the Easterlin paradox (Happiness Economics,
Wikipedia).

Why does
happiness not increase linearly with absolute income (as assumed by traditional
economics)? Following some hypothetical explanations:

1)The
relative income effect, i.e. the income compared to the income distribution of
the society the person lives in. This effect is the result of various
underlying mechanism, e.g.

a)The
secondary inflation effect, i.e. activities become more costly in a richer society

b)The
frame-of-reference effect, i.e. the pleasure derived from an activity depends on the
comparison standard. Psychologists have studied this effect under the labels relative deprivation
and social
comparison. Relative rather than absolute levels of income influence
well-being.

c)Hedonic adaptation
(hedonic or aspiration treadmill): According to the aspiration
treadmill, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in
tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.

A relative
level is also known in health care under the name contentment paradox.
Health problems or financial problems hardly influence subjective well-being,
as long as all members within a group have the same problems (and as
long as well-being doesn’t drop below a critical limit) [Schumacher, 3]

2)The
cultural hypothesis links happiness and income to cultural traits and comes to
astonishing results. The cultural dimension which has received most attention
is that of individualism/collectivism.
Statistically individualism is a powerful predictor for average life satisfaction,
more powerful than income.

a)Saying
that individualism correlates with life satisfaction is not the same as saying
that individualist cultures are superior to collectivist ones. If Western
cultures may have the edge in producing happy people, Asian cultures may have
the edge in producing people who value and meet their social obligations.

b)Individualism
tends to be more conducive to economic prosperity than collectivism. Except for
a well-defined subset of collectivist cultures (societies which are influenced
by Confucianism) hardly
any other collectivist country has managed to marry collectivism with sustained
economic growth, while almost all individualist cultures today belong to the
high-income countries.

[Hirata, 16-20]

Besides the relative
income effect and the cultural influence, there are also various additional
determinants on the individual and group level which influence happiness.
Following some examples:

What makes people happy?

Patterns in the
determinants look like this:

Reported happiness is highest among people who are

1.Highly Educated

2.Female

3.High Income

4.Young or Old (not middle-aged)

5.Married

6.Retired

7.Looking after the home

8.Self-employed

[Oswald]

Other surveys
consider a wider context:

1.A study conducted at the University of Zurich suggested that democracy
and federalism bring well-being to individuals. It concluded that the more
direct political participation possibilities available to citizens raises their
subjective well-being (see The
new face of economics)

Possibly the
mere fact of not belonging to the majority increases the risk of being
unhappy.

Disclaimer

Unfortunately
we have to conclude this chapter with the remark that many of the empirical
results of happiness economics are highly controversial:

▪In 2008, economists Justin Wolfers and
Betsey Stevenson, both of the University of Pennsylvania, published a paper
where they reassessed the Easterlin paradox using new time-series data. They
conclude contrary to Easterlin's claim, increases in absolute income are
clearly linked to increased self-reported happiness, for both individual people
and whole countries. The statistical relationship demonstrated is between
happiness and the logarithm of absolute income, suggesting that above a
certain point, happiness increases more slowly than income, but no
"saturation point" is ever reached. The study provides evidence that
happiness is determined not only by relative income, but also by absolute
income. That is in contrast to an extreme understanding of the hedonic
treadmill theory where "keeping up with the Joneses” is the only determinant of behavior (Easterlin paradox, Wikipedia)

▪Also Daniel
Kahneman, who made the case of an aspiration treadmill, recently
claimed to have falsified the thesis:

Social scientists rarely change their minds, although they often
adjust their position to accommodate inconvenient facts. But it is rare for a
hypothesis to be so thoroughly falsified. Merely adjusting my position
would not do; although I still find the idea of an aspiration treadmill
attractive, I had to give it up (see The Sad Tale of the Aspiration
Treadmill).

▪In a recent research paper Justin Wolfers and Betsey
Stevenson even claimed that the relationship between subjective well-being and
income does not diminish as incomes rise [Stevenson].

6.3
Philosophical Criticism

Comparability
Does the answer “I am quite happy” given by person “A” have the same meaning as
the answer “I am quite happy” given by person “B”? The surveys assume is does,
thanks to our ability to communicate and empathize. Survey questions
don’t ask for cardinal numbers but only for comparative judgments. The problem
is not essentially different from comparing my own happiness today with that of
yesterday on a rough scale [Hirata, 5].

Can the term happiness be compared across cultures? The objection on
grounds of semantic non-equivalence seems to be justified to some extent (…).
However, there is strong evidence to believe that these semantic differences
are not more significant across cultures than across individuals within a given
culture [Hirata, 6]

Given its very nature, happiness is subjective. It is difficult to
compare one person’s happiness with another. It can be especially difficult to
compare happiness across cultures. However, happiness economists believe they
have solved this comparison problem. Cross-sections of large data samples
across nations and time demonstrate consistent patterns in the determinants
of happiness (Happiness Economics,
Wikipedia)

Whereas
consistent patterns apply to the majority, the comparison problem may prove to
be unsolvable for minorities. The retreat-oriented kind of Buddhist happiness doesn’t
have the same determinants as the happiness of the average Western consumer.

Context dependency
Happiness economics (as far as now) accounts for data after World War II. But
the determinants of happiness could change drastically in times of war or
catastrophes so that the results are only valid within given (and often
unconsidered) side constraints. An increase in happiness might have a price in
the form of increased risk (see On the Perception of Risk
and Benefit). In contrast to philosophical novels, happiness economics
cannot interpret culture and cannot reveal alternatives: Examples:
1. Religious irrationalism (Voltaire)
2. Idealistic irrationalism (Thomas
Carlyle)
3. Decadence (Ayn
Rand)

If a certain kind of happiness is repressed in the investigated culture, then
it is also repressed in the surveys. If a certain kind of happiness doesn’t
serve survival, it will disappear. Examples:
1. Imagine we live in a (fictitious) Nazi state winning World War II and
surveys indicate that the main determinants of happiness are winning wars and
exterminating minorities. In such a case the empirical method leads to
questionable results.
2. Happiness can be culturally connected to and disconnected from aggression, a
topic which is addressed in the philosophical novel A Clockwork Orange
(Burgess)

The context-dependency of determinants is a well known problem in happiness
economics and complicates the interpretation of results:Example 1:
A happiness study conducted in Russia during the 1990s indicated that as
unemployment grew, the well-being of both those employed and unemployed
rose. Possible explanations are the following:
1. Diminished expectations, i.e. employed respondents were less critical of
their own situation when many around them were unemployed
2. Benefit from the unpaid work that the unemployed were able to do for their
families and communities with their increased time resource.

Example 2:
1. Children tend to decrease parental happiness, at least until they leave for
college, although in terms of a broader life narrative the opposite may be
true.

2. Married
people are happier, but it is unclear if this is due to the marriage or if
already happy people tend to marry.
(Happiness Economics,
Wikipedia)

The examples show that a correct interpretation requires additionalquestions and at some point surmounts the capacity of
surveys. At this point the answers of the interviewees transform into
narrations and we approach the philosophical novel. Example: Sartre’s Nausea can be seen as a
detailed answer to the survey question: “How satisfied are you with your life
as a whole these days?”

Individuality

Individuality undermines an easy solution for maximizing social
welfare:

Many changes in life circumstances have only a short-lived effect on
reported subjective well-being because people adapt to the new situation [Frey,
7].

But people adapt differently to new situations:

Imagine if courts have to decide on compensation for disabilities
sustained in a car accident. For the same physical disabilities, should they
award lower compensation to people who can more readily adapt and higher damages
to others who cannot adapt so easily? [Frey, 8]

And how could the courts assure that adaptation is measured
correctly?

Individuality makes
it impossible to find general rules (or even mathematical functions) for
happiness.

Statistics
allows finding those social indicators (determinants) which are relevant for
the happiness of the majority but may be misleading in the individual
search for happiness:

1.If high
education is a determinant of happiness then we cannot conclude that
everybody should get a high education:

a.Intellectual
competition overstrains individuals with below average intelligence and makes
them unhappy.

b.Possibly
high education is a relative effect as well as highincome
(see Easterlin paradox).

2.If being
female is a determinant of happiness then we cannot conclude that men
should reassign their gender. Being female is a preference of most females, but
statistics hardly changes a man’s preference to be a man.

Statistical
results are often presented as if they were general truths. Following an
example in the context of the response shift [Brickman]:

Since there
are individuals who remain deeply depressed and vulnerable to suicide, above
general kind of statement is an example of pseudoscience. Whereas many
individuals get more love and affection than before the accident, there are others
who make a completely different experience. General statements about paralyzed
people also tend to neglect the historical and cultural context.

Induced
incentive distortions

In the (rare) case in which a government is unable to manipulate a
particular indicator to its benefit, it has an incentive to create new
indicators. This is easily possible in the case of happiness. As has been
pointed out in the second section, a variety of indicators may capture
individual well-being. Governments and pressure groups will choose those most
beneficial to their respective interests, or will even create new ones better
suited to their purposes [Frey, 11]

When individuals become aware that the happiness level they report influences
the behavior of political actors, they have an incentive to misrepresent it.
They can “play the system” [Frey, 11].

Objectivity

The construction
of economics on the basis of subjective preferences is a
questionable undertaking:

▪Much evidence has been collected showing that
individuals are not always able to maximize their own utility and that
therefore, aggregate utility will not be maximized either. These systematic
mistakes refer to such instances as myopia, excessive optimism, the
focusing illusion, utility
misprediction in general, as well as a weakness of will. People are often
willing to pay a great deal for goods whose acquisition does not improve their
welfare [Frey, 13]

▪Individual preferences are often the result of
unconscious learning processes and depend on questionable education, marketing
etc. Why should these unconsidered preferences be normatively relevant? Why
should we determine subjectivism
as an axiom in economics? In every scientific field of knowledge we accept that
objective criteria and experts play a predominant role in taking
decisions. Why not in economics?

▪In jurisprudence, the social sciences and in
philosophy it is largely accepted that every individual should have the same rights and that there
should be generally binding rules and conditions which restrict purely
subjective preferences. The justification of these rights, rules and conditions
is based on social contract theory which (in Rawls’ case) resorts to objectivistic
arguments [Kleinewefers, 280].

Happiness
economics, as well as classical economics, tends to consider the promotion of
happiness as an ethical goal. But a happy culture (in total or in
average) can still be a morally dubious culture:

1.If our sense of happiness is closely connected
to brain functions, it might become possible to manipulate our brain in a much
more refined and effective way than current methods allow. The use of SSRIs
might make us “feel happy for no good reason at all, or happy even when there
remains much in one’s life to be truly unhappy [Morioka].

2.In many cases the happiness of the majority is
improved at the cost of a minority. Rawls emphasized the argument that the welfare of the worst off
is more relevant than total or average happiness. Happiness
economics shares the minority problem with classical and preference
utilitarianism [Hare, 121-122].

The
contribution of statistics to the search for happiness consists in

1.the
discovery of cultural determinants and treadmill mechanisms

2.the
quantification of the various determinants of happiness

3.the
refutation of specific claims for universality

Finally
statistical knowledge may also be helpful to minorities in understanding their
position relative to the majority.

7
Cross-Comparison

7.1
Methodological pluralism

What we have
done so far is looking at reality from specific angles. If we change the angle,
the picture changes and the previous one appears to be distorted. Each picture
is only valid relative to its point of observation. Does methodological
pluralism inevitably lead to moral relativism?

1.Relativism usually springs from a set of differences
that cannot be eliminated by argument or evidence alone. Such differences
are not merely intellectual; they include not only quite distinct forms of approaches
to knowledge, but different patterns of social belief and different
institutions (…). The modern world is not the first to experience radical
difference in knowledge, belief, and institutions. People who regard the
'postmodern condition' as unique generally seem to believe the world began in
1900. Well, it did not, and laments about a world in which radically
incompatible ideas, beliefs, and institutions exist are not new [Hirst, 15]

2.An example of a disastrous form of relativism is
to be found in the sociology of deviance. (…) We are not helped greatly by
being told that things were done differently in medieval Europe or that quite
different conceptions prevail among the Hopi, and that our ways of doing things
are historically limited. True, but we are trying to deal with certain problems
of conduct and are not living in a perpetual sociology seminar (…) The
sociologist cannot pretend to be an indifferent observer or a merely clever
academic critic of his or her society for ever, without paying the price of
being seen as such and dismissed as an irrelevancy. Relativist arguments can
be intellectually destructive but so can the use of objectivist
epistemological doctrines as part of an intellectual 'police action' (…) The
problem is that despite this we do need to differentiate between valid
and invalid theories, knowledge, and ideas (…). In a relativist Utopia
creationists would enjoy de facto equal regard with evolutionary biology
in educational establishments [Hirst, 18].

3.Validity is as much a political issue as it is
an intellectual one. What beliefs are taken as valid determines the whole tenor
of the social order. Some beliefs may be legally tolerable as private
eccentricities. I can believe the earth is flat; but this belief would be
deleterious if I should become a successful educational reformer seeking to
give this view equal time with other views in schools.

4.To this an objection may be raised: 'How then is
the validity or invalidity of a belief to be assessed?' (…) This task has
always to be accomplished by arguments and evidence appropriate to the specific
case in question (…). To ask 'How do we know that our arguments are valid, our
evidence is sufficient?' is to pitch us back into the domain of 'guarantees'
and into the morass of philosophical epistemology [Hirst, 19].

5.We may be victims of our own assumptions about
method and the entities that exist in our world but we can never be wholly free
of such assumptions (…). Methodological pluralism is a fact of life. It also
provides resources for a mutual check on the pretensions as to standards of
validity that each epistemological doctrine necessarily shares. [Hirst, 20].

With reference
to the preceding chapters we can say that each of the methods discussed there
improves the understanding of happiness and it would be wrong to exclude
one of them. We have also seen that the mutual check contributes to a
better understanding of the goals and limits of each method.

2.Philosophical
concepts (the advice of the wise, philosophical novels) can be checked with
empirical arguments

Methodological
pluralism is neither a reason for moral relativism, nor
a reason against it. The variety of methods simply enhances the capacity to check
arguments on both sides.

7.2
Style

Positive psychology, sociology
and happiness economics

In science
style is not a major issue. There is an ideal of clarity and reduction of
complexity (Ockham’s Razor)
but if an important scientific result is published in bad style there is no
great harm. There are usually many scientists who improve the style in later
publications.

Philosophical novels

The strength
of literature is its access to emotion. In a philosophical novel style is a
means to create empathy in addition to analytical results. Mixtures of
philosophical and literary style reach the reader’s intellect and emotions at
the same time.

A
central irony of the text is that Nietzsche mimics the style of the Bible in order to
present ideas which fundamentally oppose Christian
and Jewish
morality and tradition.

More likely it
wasn’t irony but intention. By copying the style of the Bible Nietzsche gets
access to emotions which are tied to religion. These emotions are then linked
to a new intellectual concept.

Philosophy versus Literature

From the
discussion in chapter 4.2 we can draw the following conclusion:

The aesthetic
quality of a novel may or may not support the ethical quality. If a novel plays
a role in ethics that doesn’t exclude that the same novel plays a different
role in aesthetics. It seems adequate to compare

1.the
relation between morally relevant novels and ethics with

2.the
relation between narration and analysis in a therapy

The term philosophy
could then be used for the interaction between narration and analysis.

A novel (as
well as the narration in a therapy) doesn’t have to be an example of good
conduct in order to create insight.

In this paper

1.Philosophy is
represented by The Advice of the Wise

2.Literature is
represented by Philosophical novels

Interdisciplinary philosophy

A wide definition
of the term philosophy considers narration and analysis as one of
several methods to get insight. Interdisciplinary
philosophy attempts to form an overall picture out of different
perspectives.

Although interdisciplinary and interdisciplinarity
are frequently viewed as twentieth century terms, the concept has historical
antecedents, most notably Greek
philosophy (Interdisciplinarity,
Wikipedia)

7.3
Content

Completeness

Why does ethics
require a complete description?

1)In art
completeness is irrelevant or even in contradiction to the nature of art.

2)In science
completeness is relevant in the context of practical applications:

a)If
the control system of an atomic reactor doesn’t consider all possible cases of
failure, the result might be fatal.

3)In ethics
completeness is relevant because it decides about behavior. The level of
cognition even goes into the definition of rational behavior:

a)Moral
rules under incomplete information may lead to counter-productive results.

Example: Empirical research has demonstrated that
money makes people happy to the degree that they are wealthier compared to the
social average. If this is true, then the happiness one derives from
above-average consumption will be the happiness at the expense of others
[Hirata, 33].

b)An
incomplete description tends to develop a normative force: If one of the two
paths in a crossing is invisible the situation functions like an invitation to
take the visible path.

In this paper
we have seen different kinds of incompleteness:

1.The
Advice of the Wise lacks the information, for which personality traits (risk
profile) and environment (culture) the advice is best suited.

2.Positive
Psychology devaluates retreat-oriented ways of living.

3.Philosophical
novels are free to describe a peculiarity in ethics instead of
giving a complete picture.

4.Sociology
doesn’t investigate the relation between individual life
stories and happiness.

An incomplete
description is a special case of a biased description. The missing part of the
description corresponds to a valuation with weight zero. Among the most popular
examples of biased descriptions are

1)“Life
is beautiful”

2)“The
truth is beautiful”

An unbiased
description on the society level includes the existence of horrible lives so
that the term life can hardly be characterized by the term beauty.
On the individual level the truth sometimes shows a way out of misery, but in
other cases we find just the opposite, e.g. if a patient is informed about an
incurable disease. Consequently we have to classify “The truth is beautiful” as
a biased description. A biased description corresponds to a distorted
perception. A distorted perception leads to irrational ethical decisions.

Descriptions
are not only distorted due to a lacking knowledge of facts and due to a lacking
structural analysis. They are also distorted because of the observers’
interests. If we reveal the interests behind interpretations, then we make
absolute claims relative, but we can establish new values on a deeper level of
insight:

Interests behind descriptions

Descriptions are backed up by interests and resources. The interests
of the so called “neutral” observers can be derived from the topics which get
attention and from the energy and resources spent on their observation.

b)Single
male philosophers tend to repress the happiness of being married and having
children.

2)Positive
psychology

is a kind of
biological fundamentalism and denies retreat-oriented ways of living. Similar
to Nietzsche
it represses the Buddhist type of happiness.

3)Philosophical
novels

The author’s
individual interests may produce biased descriptions

4)Sociology

a)If
a specific kind of happiness is repressed, then there are no corresponding
surveys. Drug consumption e.g. is selectively repressed depending on
the culture.

b)Statistics
is an objective tool, but researchers often interpret the data according to
their own interest.

5)Happiness
economics

The interest
of happiness economics is (originally) to maximize happiness. That’s the
reason why it tends to concentrate on a single generalized kind of
happiness (usually subjective
life satisfaction).

General
observations:

1)With
some exceptions like the Hindu Artha,
moral philosophies tend to repress the pleasure of being wealthy, a repression
which is broken up by the dictum:

a)“To be rich is the most pleasant way to be unhappy” or

b)“Those who say that money can’t buy happiness don’t know where
to shop.”

2)With
the exception of philosophical novels all methods tend to repress the
pleasure of immoral behavior:

“What we call happiness in the strictest sense of the word comes
from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to
a high degree.” (Sigmund Freud)

Happiness research doesn’t have to be induced by a crisis; it can be
motivated by boredom as well [Hahn, 121].

If this is true, then the search for happiness is an anthropological
constant and has an affinity to the search for sense, transcendence and
redemption. There are some observations in support of this view:

1)The romantic love has a religious trait
[Burkhart, 183].

2)The recreational industry develops new forms of
transcendence which replace the church service [Schulz-Nieswandt, 203]

Remarkable theses of happiness research are the following:

1)The deliberate attempt to become happy often
produces a counter-productive result [Hettlage, 154]. Possibly the unconscious
process which creates happiness is disturbed by the conscious search.

2)Happiness is in conflict with art and intellect
(Gottfried Benn) [Brenner, 254]

3)Happiness is in conflict with rational behavior [Schimank,
163].

If above theses are true, then there are strong arguments against
any prescribed forms of happiness and their rational pursuit. There are even
doubts if happiness should be promoted at all. On the other hand there are no doubts
that suffering should be reduced. It is accordingly easier to find a
corresponding consensus [Fisch, 224]. The acceptance of such a consensus could
be improved, if it were embedded in a myth [Bargatzky, 104]. Following two
well-known candidate myths which are compatible with reason:

1.The myth of technological progress, which says
that the actual culture reduces the degree of suffering relative to earlier
cultures.

2.A secular Buddhist myth which says, that we live
in a world of delusion and that each individual is able to liberate
him-/herself.

8
The Normative Force of Reason

8.1
Basics

Reason as a type of thought

Reason, as used in this article, refers
to mental
faculties that generate or affirm propositions, by activities of the mind
such as judging, predicting, inferring, generalizing, and comparing. Reason in
this sense is often contrasted with authority, intuition, emotion, mysticism, superstition,
and faith, and is
thought by rationalists to be more reliable than these in
discovering what is true
or what is best. The meaning of the word
"reason" overlaps to a large extent with "rationality"
and the adjective of "reason" in philosophical contexts is normally
"rational",
rather than "reasoned" or "reasonable" (…) Reason and logic can be thought
of as distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. Reason is a
type of thought
(Reason, Wikipedia).

Reason as a type
of thought can be illustrated by the Socratic Method:

1.According to the Aristotelian theory, there is
a best way of living together which exists independently of historical
circumstances.

2.According to Rousseau, we should even doubt that reason, language and politics are a good
thing (Reason, Wikipedia)

Whether reason
makes people happy or not – there is a need for ruling cooperation and
competition.

Anthropological research reveals that the fact that people have
moral standards is a universal. In other words, the one universal research
is sure of is that no society embraces an "anything goes" approach to
morality (cultural relativism, Wikipedia).

If the common
need for moral rules can be combined with a common type of thought, then
there is a chance for a universal discourse on the subject. Even Rousseau,
in developing and promoting his skeptical view on reason, used reason as a
tool.Reason is a possible common denominator in overcoming the
cultural diversity of norms. In accordance with the culture of Enlightenment we
suggest that reason has a certain normative force. But there is no teleological
claim in this paper that reason will prevail.

Discourse
ethics

In his treatise
on politics Aristotle
wrote that the community attains better results with regard to knowledge and
judgments than an individual, better results even than the best individuals.

The basic idea of discourse ethics is that the validity of a
moral norm cannot be justified in the mind of an isolated individual reflecting
on the world. The validity of a norm is justified only intersubjectively in
processes of argumentation between individuals; in a dialectic.
The validity of a claim to normative rightness depends upon the mutual
understanding achieved by individuals in argument. From this it follows that
the presuppositions
of argumentation would become important; for example:

1.The presupposition that participants in
communicative exchange are using the same linguistic expressions in the same
way

2.The presupposition that no relevant argument is
suppressed or excluded by the participants

3.The presupposition that no force except that of
the better argument is exerted

4.The presupposition that all the participants are
motivated only by a concern for the better argument

Above presuppositions
of argumentation are an ethical ideal which is hardly reachable in practice:

1.Linguistic expressions are usually different or
used in different ways.

2.A relevant argument may be in conflict with
emotions and therefore suppressed by the unconscious.

3.In ethics arguments are often tied to valuations
and valuations depend on varying life experiences.

4.What is the better argument, if emotions and
corresponding valuations are different?

The exchange of experiences
and empathy therefore are important factors for reaching a common
ethical decision.

Group
dynamics

Empirical
findings suggest that the judgments of a group are not consistently better than
the ones of an individual:

1.Group discussions sometimes not only reproduce
misjudgments but even reinforce them. Group members tend to give too much
importance to the common knowledgealready available in the group
relative to the additional knowledge of single individuals. There is a
tendency to believe that the majority has good reasons for their judgments and
a social pressure to comply with the majority.

2.Political statements often go beyond factual truth
in order to delimit a group relative to competing groups [Tooby]. Political and
ideological groups tend to exacerbate their positions in the course of a discussion.
This tendency leads to a polarization between competing subgroups, e.g. liberals
and conservatives [Sunstein].

The pitfalls of
group dynamics can be
mitigated by institutions which are dedicated to the apolitical distribution of
knowledge.

Examples:

1.The authors of Wikipedia are not motivated
by a gain in reputation (their names are not displayed in the text). Authors also
are not driven by economic motives, because there is no financial reward. The
quality of Wikipedia is increasingly improved by teams of specialized editors
[Sunstein].

In contrast to
Facebook and Twitter, Wikipedia is one of the few online outlets that strives
for neutrality. After Wikipedia had spent 15 years in operation, researchers
at Harvard Business School evaluated almost 4,000 articles
against the same entries in Encyclopedia Britannica to compare their biases.
They focused on English-language articles about US politics, especially
controversial topics that appeared in both outlets in 2012. The authors found
that the 2.8 million registered volunteer editors who were reviewing the
articles became less biased over time [Greenstein].

2.The quality of democratic decisions is improved
by organizations like Politools, a
network of interdisciplinary, scientific, internet-based projects. The Politool
projects assist the average citizen in political decision making. Example:Smartvote.

Is authenticity in
conflict with an ethics of reason? The answer depends on the definition of authenticity:

▪If the term authentic is associated with the
(unconscious) biological drives, then the conflict is inevitable. Freud’s cultural
pessimism results from the conflict between biological and cultural demands.

With the latter
definition it can be an authentic decision to adopt an ethics of reason.

8.2
Moral Relativism

What kind of
relativism is inevitable?

Cultural relativism

From an
abstract point of view ethically relevant interests can be expressed by

1.different
risk-profiles

2.different
degrees of solidarity (compassion)

Different
degrees of risk-aversion and solidarity lead to a different behavior with a
specific survival value. In a given culture with its tradition and its anticipated
scenario of the future certain combinations are more frequent than others.
Since cultures are in competition, the definition of moral value with the
highest survival value prevails.

Whereas
cultural relativism regards the actual differences in the various traditions of
culture, ethos and morals as a given fact, it leaves the possibility of moral universalism
open [Ulrich, 28]

Non-absolutism

The cross-comparison of concepts and methods delivers arguments
against moral absolutism.

Moral absolutism is the meta-ethical
view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, devoid of the context
of the act. Thus lying, for instance, might be considered to be always immoral,
even if done to promote some other good (e.g., saving a life). Moral absolutism
stands in contrast to categories of ethical theories such as consequentialism
(e.g. utilitarianism) and situational ethics, which holds that the
morality of an act depends on the consequences or the context of the act.

Moral absolutism should not be confused with moral universalism which holds that the same
things are right and wrong for all similarly-situated people, regardless of
anyone's opinions, though not necessarily regardless of context (Moral absolutism,
Wikipedia).

Example: According to classical utilitarianism (which is a form of moral
universalism) a decision is morally right, if it increases the total happiness
within the community.

Value
pluralism

Value pluralism contends that there are two or more
genuine scales of value, knowable as such, yet incommensurable, so that any
prioritization of these values is either non-cognitive or subjective. A value
pluralist might, for example, contend that both a life as a nun and a life as a
mother realize genuine values (in a universalistic sense), yet they are
incompatible and there is no purely rational measure of which is preferable. A
notable proponent of this view is Isaiah
Berlin (Meta-Ethics,
Wikipedia).

The cross-comparison
of concepts and methods confirms above example: there are good arguments for
both, life-friendly and retreat-oriented strategies. A reasonable concept
of happiness therefore has to incorporate both of them. But value pluralism doesn’t
exclude moral universalism:

Value pluralism acknowledges the co-existence of
opposing ideas and practices, but accepts limits to differences, such as when
vital human needs are violated (Moral relativism,
Wikipedia)

Conclusion

The
cross-comparison of concepts and methods delivers arguments for cultural
relativism, non-absolutism and value pluralism, but doesn’t exclude moral
universalism. There is still a chance that moral universalism could be
constituted on the basis of reason.

8.3
Moral Universalism

The Kantian
claim that we are all autonomous persons of equal dignity leads to the consequent
reciprocity of moral claims. If we extend reciprocity to the generalized
other, then we get the principle of universalization.
Those claims enjoy general validity which every person can assert against
others in a rational way. The term rational way means: tested by the
general principle of role reversal [Ulrich 32].

Moral is
not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we make
ourselves worth of happiness.

In a dynamic
environment the claim for universality has to be questioned from time to time.
But subtle and well-justified adaptations are far from arbitrariness.

Examples:

▪The discussion about the limits of free
speech on freespeechdebate.com
and the corresponding theory [Ash].

▪The discussion about democracy theory [Brennan].

The theoretical
claim for universal validity has to be distinguished from the chances to implement
universal values. Human
rights raise a claim for universality but it may be impossible to reach a
universal implementation. The normative force of reason is just one of many
determinants in the acceptance of values. For information about modernity, postmodernity and the
force of reason see Cultural Pessimism and Therapy.

9
Conclusion

1)How
does the method relate to the result?

a)The
Advice of the Wise lacks the information, for which personality traits
(risk profile) and environment (culture) the advice is best suited.

b)Positive
Psychology devaluates retreat-oriented ways of living.

c)Philosophical
novels are free to describe a peculiarity in ethics instead of
giving a complete picture.

d)Sociology
doesn’t investigate the relation between individual life
stories and happiness.

15.Frey
Bruno S., Stutzer Alois (2007), Should National Happiness be Maximized?
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Working
Paper Series, ISSN 1424-0459, Working Paper No. 306